


Marker Date

by stitchy



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Artist!Steve, Dating, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:15:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5221088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy/pseuds/stitchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony lets Steve break out the markers and draw on him, resulting in a cute date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marker Date

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Armsplutonic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Armsplutonic/gifts).



   For all his style and inexhaustible wardrobe, Tony really was a master of being unkempt. Messy hair, scorch marks on his clothes, at least three scars per square foot of skin (nevermind the arc reactor), grease under his fingernails- even the occasional monster goop smudge. Amongst the more charming of his collection of disarrays, Steve thought- was a tendency to scrawl a note on himself with a marker if need be.

   "Cap, do you have a piece of paper on you?" Tony asked one night. They were at some ‘Grip and Grin’ photo op with local bigwigs, both dressed in suits and as squeaky clean as they ever managed to be while still on the clock.

   Steve patted down his pockets with a furrowed brow, and Tony chuckled.

   "Aww, that is the 97-year-oldest thing you've done in a while. Nevermind."

   He unbuttoned his sleeve and took a sharpie out of his breast pocket, pulled the top off with his teeth, and started to scrawl on his forearm a series of numbers and letters punctuated by symbols that Steve was certain were mathematical but ultimately unfamiliar to him.

 

-

 

   "You're not supposed to be working, Tony."

   "I'm not supposed to be 'on my feet.' I haven't gotten up from this chair in hours, right J?" Tony pushed off from a countertop, rolling his chair clear across the workshop to another station.

   "Dr. Banner will probably regret his colloquialism and opt for a more literal and less exploitable course for any future medical advice, Sir," JARVIS replied.

   "I'll bet," Steve agreed, positioning himself between Tony and escape. "How's the swelling?"

   Tony pulled up a pant leg displaying his purpled ankle. There were lines in black ink circling the injury, noted with timestamps. Smart. 2am to 6pm showed a distinct shrinking in area that Steve could live with. Looking at it, there was something artistic about the way the line and color combined to describe something that gave him an idea for later. Maybe in a week, when Tony would be healed.

   "Good. Get to a stopping point in the next two hours, all right?" He dipped his nose into Tony’s hair to drop a kiss on the top of his head before he left.

   "Yessir."

 

-

 

   Steve had almost talked himself out of asking when he walked into Tony’s workshop a few days later, but there he was, crouched under a suspended skycycle with a blowtorch in hand, flickering light streaking his bare arms with hot blues and yellows. He waited to be noticed.

   “Steve, what’s happening?” Tony stood up and made a perfunctory attempt to brush off his clothes.

   "Do you have some time this evening? There's something I was hoping you'd maybe do."

   "I’d drop this right now, if it's you asking. What can I do for you?"

   Steve tilted his head. "It's more something I was hoping to do- to you?"

   Tony whipped off his goggles and flung them to Dum-E, probably so he could deliver his best and unobscured Sparkling Eyes TM, Steve thought.

   "Oh? _Oh_!” Tony squinted in thought. “I like where this is going and all, but didn't we agree we were taking it slow? There’s still-"

   "A quota of either four more dates or one alien invasion, whichever comes first?" Steve teased. With a smooth step forward, Tony bracketed Steve's waist with his only slightly sooty hands.

   "Not that I'm complaining, but you set rules and I am being super gentlemanly about it."

   "This activity can count as a date."

   "Sparring is not a date. Unless its verbal sparring, and I promise I will not go easy on you." Steve smiled and slid his hands up Tony’s arms, considering them with a brush of his thumbs.

   "I know I'm no match for you, Tony. But you only get better by matching with a more skilled opponent."

   "You sweet talker, you. What is this mystery activity?”

   “Would you let me draw on you? I notice you take notes sometimes, with a marker. On your hands, or oW!" he yelped, when one of Tony's wandering hands pinched his behind.

   "Where?"

   "Everywhere! If you behave!"

   Steve bestowed a short, but promising kiss. Tony grinned and pulled back.

   “I have something for this,” he muttered, turning to a yellow cabinet marked FLAMMABLES. Steve watched as he rummaged through a few shelves before brandishing an industrial bottle of denatured alcohol.

   “For clean up!” he declared.

 

-

 

   They met upstairs in Steve’s apartment an hour later. Steve dragged an end table closer to the couch, and seated himself on his heels beside it, motioning for Tony to do the same. Their knees butted up while he popped open his supply box and selected a light blue marker. Steve held out a hand, in request. Tony offered his left, palm up. It started with swirls, curls, and tendrils.

   "I love your hands," Steve said, following each tendon up in a line to the wrist. "You could put a full page ad in a magazine of just your hand holding a dirt clod, I would need to buy that dirt clod."

   "Who has found a way to merchandise dirt clods?"

   "Someone very clever with a lot of dirt?"

   "Very clever?" Tony turned his wrist obligingly. Steve continued a line up his arm.

   "Don't worry. You're still in my top five favorite geniuses."

   "Five!?" Tony squawked.

   "Come closer. Let me do up higher."

   They shifted, and Tony pushed up and shuffled on his knees until their legs were as closely interlocked as was comfortable. Steve bit back a smirk when Tony was practically in his lap.

   To work further up the arm and keep it steady they clasped to each other's elbows. It was most sustained physical contact than they'd ever had, he realized. They'd kissed before and they'd had exactly three and two half dates (interruptions were a given, in their line of work) but they'd never just held on to each other for over an hour like this. Tony talked shop, then TV, then terrible tattoos he'd seen in the 90's, and TV shows about terrible tattoos.

   "You might actually like to watch the ones that aren't just about snafus. There's a few that focus more on the design."

   When the pattern started to approach the edge of his tank top, Steve made Tony take it off, so he could spill the art into his shoulder and chest.

   “It hardly seems fair that I should be the shirtless one when you’ve got at least eight times the definition I do.”  
  
   “I could draw a six pack on you,” Steve offered.

   “I have a six pack, thank you.”  
  
   “Then what are you complaining about?”

   Steve emphatically snapped a marker cap back on and traded for a new color before starting to draw on Tony’s chest. Tony satisfied his discontent by gripping Steve’s hips ‘for stability’.  
  
   “You can touch it, you know.”

   “Hmm?” His hand was hovering over the reactor, which he’d seen occasionally, but never had reason to handle.

   “I sort of hoped you’d want you to. Positive associations and all that.”  
  
   Steve traced a finger around the rim a few times before branching out into a pointed shape, surrounding it. “How would you like your arc reactor turned into a matching star?”

   Tony’s eyes lit up.

   Steve eyeballed the five points carefully, so they would center around the glowing blue disc, then laid in his lines and filled in with an ombre. For the most part Tony was silently mesmerized, nose tipped down so he could watch, while Steve kept tutting at him to keep his chin up. He mused aloud about how some of the vets down at the VA had custom art on their prosthetics, maybe that was something he could do some of. Or maybe if he was flattering himself in regards to his skill level, he could donate some more traditional art to charitable auction. Tony grumbled in disagreement. According to him, anyone with sense would be honored to wear a Steve Rogers original.

   “Maybe I should let you loose on the armor with an airbrush!”

   After that, Steve made a sweeping comet tail for the central star, and began to plot out smaller stars connecting with the pattern on Tony’s arm. He went up his knees for a little more height. He cradled Tony's head in his free hand to steady them both, the other balanced on a collarbone while he sketched out several spots in yellow. When he was satisfied with their placement he went in with a red marker to further pronounce the shapes that scattered up the neck, blending them in little star bursts. With a deep dark brown he defined some shadow. Steve could feel Tony’s pulse with his hand wrapped where it was.

   "This is really really hot, just so you know. Like, maybe it seemed goofy at first, but let me tell you-"

   "Shh, you're moving when you talk," Steve said, lowering his grip slightly.

   "If Thor barged in right now would that count as an alien invasion, or does it have to be an alien who is... alien to us, specifically?" Tony licked his lips.

   "Nice try, wise guy," Steve breathed. It wasn’t as though the desire wasn’t there for him, too. Tony continued to chatter.

   "You should let me do this to _you_ sometime. My drawing wouldn't be nearly as pretty- scratch that. It would have to be! Because it would be on you and you are so so pretty, Steve. Thousand ship launchingly, arc reactor stoppingly-"

   Steve dropped his marker on the couch and sank down, gathering Tony's face in both hands and kissing him quiet. Tony’s hands scrambled at the hem of his shirt and started to pull it off.  
  
   “What, you wanna stop and draw on me right now?” he muffled through the fabric over his head.  
  
   “Nah, I’m just copping a feel,” Tony said, diving back in with zeal and arms twined around Steve’s waist. His lips smeared a line up Steve’s neck that would have resulted in a mouthful of ink were Steve to reciprocate it.

   Steve tipped back, pulling Tony on top of him. “I suppose it’s only fair,” he agreed.  
  
   They kissed leisurely for awhile before it became apparent that forcing Tony to sit still for so long had had a certain soporific effect. Steve would make sure to remember this the next time Tony was struggling to wind down after a 70 hour work spree.  
  
   “D’you want to sleep here tonight?” Steve brushed a hand down Tony’s back and shivered when he nuzzled a bearded chin into his neck.

   “Shh, pillow.”

   Steve called for JARVIS to put out the lights and secured his knees and arms around Tony protectively.

 

-

 

   When Steve woke up on the couch at 5 o’clock, Tony was still blanketed atop his chest, nose mashed into his sternum next to the faint transfer of several of the stars that still decorated Tony’s chest and throat. He brought a hand up to smooth his hair and noticed a blur of color on his own forearm.

   “COUNTS AS TWO DATES WHEN PAST MIDNIGHT”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

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> follow [stitchyarts](http://stitchyarts.tumblr.com/)  
> on tumblr for more Marvel art :D


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